


Antithesis

by FortinbrasFTW



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Lack of Communication, Light Play (Destiny), M/M, addressed in the second part, some dubcon around under discussed kinks in the first portion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortinbrasFTW/pseuds/FortinbrasFTW
Summary: The Renegade slips up and presses too close. Years later Drifter closes the gap.
Relationships: The Drifter/Shin Malphur
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Antithesis

The Drifter’s mouth gets greedy before his hands do. Teeth hit the meat of Shin's neck just right, gloved hands pressing needy and thick with confidence right down the front of his thighs. Shin’s — no, _Renegade’s_ — helmeted skull thunks against the metal wall with a tight groan. The teeth at his throat grin. Always so damn proud of himself.

Those hands dig in good and mean, dragging with steady pressure. Shin can't help arcing his back easy-like, hips canting like gravity towards where Drifter's are ready and waiting. He’s warm at Shin’s back, already breathing hard, though that's probably a side effect of narrowly dusting three ogres and scrambling out of the ascendant plane with void snapping at their heels. That raw iron void smell was still clinging to him, all sharp edges and licked with the kind of cold that scrambles down your throat, hungry and eager to steal breath and choke out thoughts.

Could be Shin’s cloak just got torn up worst by the blast more than he realized. Or maybe it was this place, the lonely stench of it, void pockets stuck like cobwebs in dark corners.

Or maybe it was just Drifter.

Shin shivered.

It’d been a long day that had felt like ten. He’d basically had to drag Drifter out of that portal by the scruff of his neck. There was something about the man that just begged for close calls, and Shin always found himself stuck between chewing him out and just falling in head first. And only one of those two was absolutely more of sure thing in shutting him up. Raw from a fight, gasping on any narrow escape... it was always harder than it ought to be to stop himself from pushing into the shadows when he shouldn’t.

And now, in this moment, the place he knew he shouldn't press was that tickle of infinity, that tease of void numb where his teeth met his gums. He knew damn well he shouldn't press. It might be nothing at all, but it teased, despite itself, and he couldn't help getting tugged.

Shin stretched, just a bit, just to feel out some edges. He was rewarded instantly, tendrils of nothing licking at the corners of his senses, a raw metal taste tinging the tip of his tongue that went right to his dick. Shin's breath caught too hard, too loud in the tight space of the helmet. Drifter ground up against him rough as anything, crowding them both into the cold of the wall. Shin stumbled a step, lost on the mouth muttering some shit he didn't even try to hear as it traced up the side of his neck, stubble raw on his skin solar-warm against the cold.

As Shin moved to catch himself against the wall Drifter snatched his wrist, twisting it firmly behind his back and pulling Shin tight back to his chest. Shin blinked hard, head swimming as the that knife of void slid in close and quiet. And god it really was just an edge, just enough to make him wanna chase. It tingles like the wrong end of numb, feeling like running a finger along a dying star. Shin stretches his fingers at his sides under the feeling, letting the tingling buzz snake around them. He grasps the air, and it just makes the knife's edge of nothing sink in deeper. A hint of cold teases down his throat. Hungry. Just so damn hungry.

It could be nothing. Might be that Drifter got more of an ogre blast than Shin realized. But what if it's more than that, what if it's—

Drifter's free hand presses open and firm against the arched line of Shin's neck. Shin's eyes fly open beneath the helmet. The mouth is off his neck, Drifter's forehead pressed firm against the back of his helmet instead as his hips grind the steel line of his dick up the curve of Shin's ass where he's ripped the Renegade's cloak away before they'd even finished transmatting. No faster, only deeper, slower, closer.

Something warns hard in Shin's chest. Alright... maybe a few somethings. But it just makes his pulse ratchet, just makes that edge of impossible cold reach, stretch, _beg_ even deeper. It's a strange feeling, timid almost, and god the thought of that with the way Drifter swears as Shin gets his free hand behind them and into his hair all nails and edges, it all has Shin gasping out a half lost laugh.

Fuck, he wants to kiss him.

The thought catches him harder than it ought to. His stomach flips tight and sudden, a sharp spike of lust riding up his chest into a fluttering lost rush. And damn if that cautious edge of void doesn't leap right with him, heavy behind his eyes, teasing under his fingers, almost numbing the tip of his tongue.

Because he does want to kiss him. He wants to snap this helmet away in a wash of light, and fall head first into whatever's waiting. He'd lick into his mouth deep and slow and break that smug smile into pieces. Shin could find it. He could find that shivering edge, that smell of obliteration, that buzz of delicious nothing. He could find it. He could coax it. Catch it. Claim it.

Shin's skin feels like it's on fire under his armor, his pulse thuds with a steady quick beat, just like a hunt. With each pound he can feel the solar pull burying deeper in his chest swelling like a flame under hard breath.

Drifter catches suddenly behind him. He isn't talking any more Shin realizes all at once. No low insistent drawl that shivers down Shin's spine, no sharp swears caught between smart teeth. Drifter's gone still, the firm line of his cock like goddamn iron against Shin's ass while Shin just _burns_.

There's a flutter. A gasp. Something cold and hidden licks the back of Shin’s throat. It's cautious and starved, like a gust of snow dusted air sneaking through a crack in a door, like an animal caught between slanting light in a darkening forest.

He can't stop himself. Shin reaches.

The solar pours out of him in one gasping grasp. He collapses into Drifter's chest as his hands start to shake, breath pooling hot and low, every bit of him suddenly stretching, arching—

The void sucks back as hard and fast as falling into cold water.

Shin's knees hit the metal of the floor with a crack. He can't help the gasping that flies free, radiance leaking out of him fast as messy as a slashed water-skin. Shin blinks, tasting fire against the back of his teeth. A nasty head-ache is already flooding in as his light bleeds out into the simple plain cold of the Derelict.

"The fuck was that?" Drifter’s voice is tight. He's furious, Shin realizes hazily.

Shin shakes his helmeted head, managing to roll over, his back falling against the metal wall. The Derelict chill is coming in fast now; it doesn't smell like much of anything besides an old worn down junk hauler.

"What?" He asks, trying to pull that Renegade cold back on like a breast-plate.

"You know ‘what’." Drifter isn't looking at him, he's across the room already, kicking some piece of the unknown across the metal floor and out of the way.

"Look," Shin swallows, his pulse still ratcheted.

 _Too close_. What the hell was he thinking?

He shrugs, forcing his posture into something solid again. "If it doesn't float your boat, just say—"

"It doesn't."

Shin wants to get up, he wants to straighten his posture, show Drifter exactly how not-a-thing this has to be. He wants to do all of that, but another part wants to stay down, look up, yield the power easily, and try to not think about how he's never heard him so hard.

Shin tries to get moisture back in his mouth, keeping his tone casual. "Lot of people fuck around with that sort of stuff, I didn't know if—"

Drifter looks at him now, and his face is stone. "Don't do it again."

A swirl of shame wraps around Shin's stomach. He makes his voice as solid as he can, and for a moment it's nothing but him when he answers: "I won't."

Drifter huffs. His posture’s still tight as Shin's seen it, arms crossed, jaw set. He turns towards a workbench in a back corner. His booted foot kicks the Renegade's cloak towards him as he goes.

"Good."

* * *

"You know, you didn't have to pop my arm out of the socket."

The hatch of the Derelict closes with a sucking rush.

Drifter's voice chimes in. "Oh, you mean when you were plummeting over that ledge pretty-face-first? I'll keep that in mind next time I catch your ass, let your ghost clean up the mess."

Shin's stiff walk carries him deeper into the ship, boots dragging just a touch. "Would've been easier."

Drifter snorts. "For you! Then what? I'm left balls deep in pissed off Fallen? Not a chance hot-shot."

"You're the one who wanted the ether. Your mess: your problem."

"What? You want hazard pay or sumthin'? If you're gonna bitch my ear off I just won't ask next time."

"It's fine," Shin says.

Drifter comes up short. "' _Fine_ '?"

Shin glances over his shoulder, posture wound tight from fighting and running and generally not dying the hard way. "That's what I said." He turns back, longer hair still a mess. Though it always was. A bit. "Let me know when you want to go back and try for the stores again."

Drifter can't help the flash of suspicion that narrows his eyes. "That's it?"

Shin shrugs. "Want me to change my mind?"

"Now don't be like that," Drifter forces the drawl back over the rest, easier than thinking about it too hard. "Just feeling you out 's all. You know I hate a tease.".

Shin shakes his head, turning towards the little glow of Drifter's room perched in the back of the ship's creeping dark. Drifter follows him, still watching suspicious as the hunter eases himself down on _Drifter's_ cot with a wince.

Drifter gives himself a wry smile. Always such hot shit until he doesn't get things exactly how he wants them. The few things he did manage to snag drop on the workstation with a ka-thud. There's a few shock blades, couple of arc-trigger mines, one weird old looking bit of metal he was gonna have a nice long night with. No pre-whirlwind ether cache unfortunately... That old King's servitor was nestled in deeper than he'd prepared for, and with plenty of doting little zealots ready to bleed for the only god they had left.

"Sorry we didn't get it done," Shin says, voice pulled with soreness as he tries to stretch his back out properly.

Drifter spins. "Alright, what the fuck's with you?"

Shin doesn't even flinch. "Just sorry we have to try again s'all. I really hate the shore... too dusty. Mucks up the guns."

Drifter's still eyeing him, but he snorts all the same. "Yeah well, no use crying over spilt bug juice."

Shin unclips his cape, tossing it easily over the little metal stool at the foot of the bed. He rolls his neck steadily as his hands clip his holsters off, all easy practice. Drifter sorts the new shit into place on his work bench, but can't help watching Malphur over his shoulder. The holsters come, heading to hang easily over the side by the cape. Shin's knife goes down beside them like it's nothing as he tries to stretch his shoulder, arcing his neck to the side. So easy. He's so fucking easy here, like it's nothing at all, like it's his own damn place. Doesn't even seem to think twice about putting his gear out of easy reach, about transmatting his armor away with a blink.

Shin sighs as he drops his head, closing his eyes, hair falling in his face as he attempts to crack his back with a slow twist. It really oughtta piss Drifter off more than it does.

"I didn't tweak your shoulder _that_ hard," he mutters, smartly snapping the glowing charge-cells out of the shock blades and rolling them over his thumb towards the empty can labeled _"zappy bullshit"_.

"Dislocating isn't what I'd call 'tweaking'. Anyways, the teleport hit me harder."

"Oh yeah, that was a shame."

"Then why're you smiling?"

"Not everyday I get to see the Man with the Golden Gun spinning around like some drunk pigeon."

And this is where he'd shoot him that cold-ass look, all ice under those pretty lashes as the mythic hunter walked right the fuck out of there. Only he doesn't. He just sighs, all small and comfortable like, as though it's just nothing. He sighs, and then he stretches out in that dark under-layer like some entitled cat on _Drifter's_ bed. Stretches, and winces hard.

"Alright, alright," Drifter mutters, tossing the last arc node onto the station with an easy flick. "Roll over."

"Gonna need a rezz to get rid of these kinks if you wanna fuck."

"I don't," Drifter snaps. Shin raises a skeptical eyebrow. "Least not— look just shut up and roll over already."

And Shin just does. Just like that. Slow and easy. He settles down on his stomach, curling his wiry arms under his pillow as Drifter steps up to the side of the cot. "If you're gonna shoot me to shut me up, just give me a warning first." Shin says not looking at him, voice muffled in the pillow.

Drifter slaps his ass. But it's not hard, playful almost, and Oryx's-chitin-dick what the fuck was wrong with him? He swings a leg over Shin's hips to take his mind off it. Shin tenses expectantly, but Drifter holds his weight up, just off the back of his thighs with a little grumble. "Favor's a favor, huh?"

Muffled, stiff: "Fucking me while my back feels like a thrall rode it's not exactly a favor."

"Who says fucking you ever is?" Drifter murmurs low, smile easy. He presses his gloved hands under Shin's shoulder blades before he can answer, pressure firm and steady, all business. "Look, just try to relax and not be a smart-ass for ten damn minutes."

And Shin just hums and eases in under the press of Drifter's hands. Like it's just that easy.

There's an empty spot behind Drifter's stomach where caution oughta be. But there's nothing there. He's not sure what's worse: the tight and terrible comfort of anxiety checking his instincts, or the odd as hell over-awareness that it's just... missing. It feels, well, not exactly worse without it, but it does feel firmly unfamiliar. Strange. And he didn't like strange. He knew it didn't come across like that, but the truth was he found himself ankle deep in weird more often than not due to a wicked sort of need to get his hands entirely around anything. Unknowns didn't sit right; they begged for pulling apart.

Hands are easier, so he makes himself lean on his. He feels out tight spots under Shin's skin, working into the practiced meat of muscles solid and soothing. Shin's a mess of knots and stuck edges, and Drifter lets himself get wrapped up in untangling every one of them. There's a nasty set up at the base of his neck, a hard pair of along the sides of his spine, one shoulder's like a rock where he must have smacked into something after the servitor dropped him five stories.

Drifter lets out a low laugh, caught close between them. "How many walls did you hit?"

"Fourteen."

"Mm, see you were counting."

"You sure weren't. Too busy sneaking around the back of the ketch and getting out without a scratch."

"What?" he drawls. "Not happy anymore to put that D in Distraction? Anyways, you're a damn liar," he pulls a hand from Shin's back, the body under him arcing for a moment in protest. He spins a finger with a small slice in the leather of his glove. "Cut my good finger on your bracers pulling your ass onto the sparrow." He puts his hand back, digging thumbs into the tightness under Shin's shoulder vengefully. Something in Shin loosens and he _sighs_ , melting that much deeper into the cot. And yeah, this is the kind of challenge that fits just right in his brain for now.

Drifter huffs and chases that feeling, running palms flat but firm over the edges of Shin's shoulders, finding the crumpled corners and smoothing them out, inch by persistent inch. He gets his heavier weight onto the balls of his thumbs and works the bunched soreness at the core of his back. Shin lets out a deep, quiet groan. Drifter smiles, pleased with himself. He adjusts, moving with a steady slow rhythm now: easing up the edges of the spine, rolling to the space under the blades, urging to the bottom of his neck, and right back down again.

"'S good," Shin's voice says quiet, muffled in the bed.

"Damn right," Drifter answers back, low and smug.

It's easy to get lost in it. Easier than it should be.

Cold. Always cold in the Derelict, not that he's noticed it much for a long while now. He's used to the smell of cold edged with metal, the feel of that seeping, seeking chill. He doesn't _dislike_ it. The cold makes him sharp and it makes it feel closer in his little corner, with the work light on his desk all gold and orange: crumpled noodle cups that missed the trash under the desk, a few dark green robes chucked over an errant chassis, a cloak on a stool, Shin's easy breath close between them. Warm. He was always so damn warm.

Guess that was part of the deal when a match of vicious vengeance sets you ablaze... Least that's what he used to think. But it wasn't quite that simple. There was a real specific way Shin Malphur burned when he was ready to incinerate the very idea of someone clean off the face of existence. It licked with the ferocity of a legend: sharp as heck, biting and tearing at you with scalding teeth. Solar flares, sudden and far too close. Drifter'd only been within the fall-out radius of The Man with the Golden Gun's true "justice" a handful of times, and that was a handful too many. It set his teeth on edge, adrenaline spiking bitter in his throat in a way that made everything in him scream _"run"_.

But Shin Malphur had a different sort of warm too...

There'd been plenty of times (too damn many) when he'd been stuck out in the middle of nowhere on some biting cold night. The chill slipped around you slow but eager, and above all, damn persistent. He'd be able to poke around if he was lucky - not hiding, not in the middle of utter nothing - and he'd do what he could to start a fire. Flames were always quick at the start, licking sharp, desperate to get their teeth into something. But then you'd feed the fire your own breath: slow and steady, but hard enough to count for something. The flames would sink into the fuel, holding on firm and confident. The color goes deepens, from that sharp violent yellow to hearty orange, a comfortable red against the dark of the night. You'd settle in then, easy now that the hard part's over. Sit your ass down, stretch out your hands. That was when the heat deepened into something truly warm, stretching out into the space around without a care in the world.

That's how Shin felt more often than not these days.

Even now, he fills up this small space easy as anything, heat rolling off of him in steady present pushes up through Drifter's gloves. He feels Shin's breathing go even right along with it, under his hands, his focus, knots unclenching, muscles giving in with hardly a fight.

Did he even notice it? Drifter wondered. How that burn rolled off of him? Or was that just part of Shin by now, a slow rolling flame that could lash into a blaze whenever it damn well pleased. Well, the fire didn't bite at him. Drifter couldn't help the stupid tendril of pride squirm into his chest. He was the one stoking the flame. He was the one feeding it exactly the way he wanted to, breathing into it at just the angles it needed.

Something hungry rolls over deep behind Drifter's chest.

He shivers. Cold. Not the room around him, seeping in from the out. It's deeper. Stretching, tentative, curious. Reaching out from within.

Drifter shifts his weight, focusing on the spread over his hands over the simple black layer covering Shin's back. He tries not to think about the feeling uncurling inside, tries not to think about the taste of cold metal teasing the back of his tongue. But the smell of coals in the cold presses in all around him and his fingers start to tingle on the edges.

Drifter twitches, digging his thumbnails unbidden under the line of Shin's shoulder blades as pins and needles start to dance between his fingertips. Shin gasps. A wash of heat rolls off of him easily licking up Drifter's front, and whatever's been gently unwinding behind his chest just _purrs_.

Slinking void pulls lazily through in Drifter's veins. It oozes around the weight of his arms, pressing full up his throat, the sucking _need_ suddenly flooding his chest unbidden. It's so strong it knocks his breath out, so desperate it would ache to swallow. He can almost feel that hurt already, bone deep. It'll hurt to swallow, just like it always has.

Fires against the cold. When they're just getting started there's hardly any heat at all, but once they settle in, stretch out, and you stretch back... That sort of warmth, when you've been the cold so long, it does hurt. But only for a moment.

Shin shivers under him. Under his hands, in his bed, smelling like his soap, beaten up for him, unwound by him. Impossibly, unbelievably, easily.

Drifter lets out a long held breath, and lets the ache go.

Greedy void instantly snakes down his arms, so thick his mouth falls open on the weight of it. He goes breathless, eyes fluttering open just in time to see his gloved hands flex against the clothed muscle of Shin's back.

He can feel Shin holding his breath, and he suddenly realizes it's more than that. He's holding onto absolutely everything. The solar is there, simmering, roiling, but contained, hell it almost feels choked. There's warmth, snapping, furious warmth, but it's smothered, like something on the other side of hull-grade glass. The void urging down his limbs doesn't touch the glass, but he can feel it begging Drifter to break it.

Dense nothing pulses as it uncurls, as it reaches, reaches, _reaches_. He's strung on it, nerves taut, breath pressing desperate as tendrils of licking, tingling, nothing _press_ from some dark, starving place deep in his very core. Pins and needles curl under his skin, ushering down his arms, unspooling between his fingers, urging around his too-hard cock, all with a silent scream of just: _please._

 _Fuck it._ Drifter taps the glass.

Every muscle in Shin's back turns to stone. His fists grip white-knuckled in the sheets. Drifter gasps as the void vibrates through him— and shit did he, say something?

Drifter opens his mouth and practically feels the void drip off his tongue like congealed gravity. "I— what'd you—?"

"Is it - _fuck_ \- can I...?"

Shin's voice laps against him like warm water. His fingers ache with it. The edge of the nothing spun between his fingers grows bold, just pressing against the glass.

"You have to tell me—" Shin's voice catches between his teeth.

Void flexes against the sizzling edge of solar and Drifter lets it, all that want pooling between his fingers, pulsing between his legs, and it just needs, it _needs_ —

" _Say it_."

In a lost part of his mind he wonders, wonders if he's ever really heard him beg before... Every smart answer trips on his tongue, every way he could wrap that plea around him like armor and turn it back into nothing. But all he says is "Yes."

It pours off of him, heady and wild as relief. He realizes hazily that he's muttering, babbling, voice almost static edged as seeping violet gathers greedy under his hands, eats up his breath, and it's nothing, nothing but "yeah, yes, _please_ —"

The glass shatters and Drifter catches fire.

It's hard to put the pieces together just right. Somewhere his back is arched. Somewhere his hands are locked. Somewhere he's bitten his lip hard enough to bleed. Those parts are hazy. What's clear is the smell of earth under a summer sun, golden light shutting out the world in a wave, sunlight heavy on the swell of his tongue... And something else. It was something deeper than his chest, sharper than an instinct, and a heck of a lot more honest than his heart. And that something just _sighed_.

It's the want that brings him back first. Drifter gasps, trying to catch his breath and all he gets is Shin. Shin, _everywhere_. Void swells under his skin like the surface of a blackhole, and if it was hungry before, now, with that golden taste on his tongue, it felt utterly starved. And he can't help it- he laughs, because goddamn if he was fucked already, he's obliterated now.

Shin snaps him back with a buck of his hips, dragging his ass right up Drifter's cock.

Drifter snarls, pooling void between his fingers with a vengeance and dragging his hands down Shin's back to grip his ass. The radiance of solar lashes and laps, wringing around his own light like it was desperate for it. Drifter grins messy with the blood from his lip. A startled swear knocks out of him as Shin's light suddenly flares down his spine. His weight shifts down hard without a thought, grinding his dick into Shin's ass as his hands move to his sides, to his hips, to anything, everything, chasing and catching and devouring whatever he can find. And _god_ he's fucking lost in it, drowning in gold and he can't even care.

The delicious smothering nothing tingles bone-deep, crisp as the cold, greedy as gravity, seeking and feasting and Shin just _meets_ it. Solar is thick on the air, slick as butter gliding up his senses, filling his head with a lazy lust even while it sets him on aflame, and god even this, even now, it's not enough. He's never felt anything like it, not with his skull cracked against a wall by an arc punch from two iron lords, not alone in the dark cracking open a ghost like an egg and letting that last delicious slice of light flood into him, not when the traveller snapped back to life. Shin is searing, unconquerable, legendary... but since when can Drifter not give just as good as he can get.

Drifter snatches at his gloves with his teeth, tearing them off. Shin makes a broken sound as soon as Drifter's hands leave him and the cold twists sharp in Drifter's chest. He shoves one bare hand down on Shin's lower back, pressing down on him as he wraps his attention around that hunger and drags it out. He catches it clever around each finger, pressing pins and needles up Shin's spine, teasing it between the folds of solar to find and beg and feed. He slaps a hand errantly against Shin's shoulder with a pulse of light, purring void into his ear. He's not even sure what he's saying, but he thinks it might include "off" or "now" or fuck even "please", because next thing he knows Shin's layers vanish under him.

Drifter's light swells, ready to eat the body under him alive. All that bare skin _burning_ beneath the callouses on his hands, the impossibly smooth teeth of his light. It's too much, it's _been_ too much. Drifter bites Shin's shoulder, grounding, trying to hold on, scrambling to meet the waves of light with the desperate grind of his hips. He breaths molten gold and the ache of nothing devours it off his tongue. Shin's hand stumbles back, snatching into Drifter's hair, holding on for dear fucking life.

Before he realizes it he's kissing him: everywhere, anywhere. There's no teeth, no edge, just half open, fallen apart and laid bare. Drifter kisses the bite on his shoulder, the perfect crease of muscle in middle of his back, the mess of his hair. The void _sings_ through him. Shin shudders, strung out on some invisible line tight between them, a line wrapped in cords of heat and shadow. Drifter opens his hands wide against the sides of his chest, urging rushes of tingling chill that catch the warmth and circle it like coyotes, slow, playful, dangerous.

He thinks Shin might be saying his name, but he hardly hears it. There's something wrapped between them that's calling his name in a shape more honest than anything ever has. Not Wu or Ming, not Hope or Drifter, something lost and forgotten everywhere accept for here, between the pull of nothing and the swell of everything. A light that's never going to go out, the dark that's never, ever going to have enough.

Drifter tries to focus, tries claws his way to the opposite of a shore because he never wants to stop drowning. Shin smells like everything warm, and good, and fuck it, everything _safe._ Drifter buries his head in the crook of his neck shamelessly, and god he could be sick on this for the rest of his wretched starving life. He's not even sure he'd regret it.

"Shin— I-" the void whines against everything in him, shuddering with desperation.

Shin's reaches out, his hand snatching Drifter's. He pulls it up over his head, and easy as anything, he laces their fingers together. The solar squeezes close. He breaths, "Hold on." And with that, Shin explodes.

Somewhere, a long time ago, someone told him how stars were made. It was something about a nothing that gets too hungry, or a light that burns just too damn hard. Or maybe that was how stars died... Either way, he was pretty sure wether they were living or dying, stars didn't come like the universe was ripping in half.

Void exhales in a sated wave as Drifter collapses forward. The cool, aching edges pour out of him, sinking into Shin deep and possessive. Shin shudders with it, groaning as his fingers relax against Drifter's, solar waves abating into a gentle tide. Drifter's void eases right along with it, curling around each shiver, every tickle of light, as they both try to catch their breath. The purring nothing in his chest curls slowly back in on itself, lazy and fed.

Drifter can feel his brain turning back on in pieces. The first piece realizes hazily that he still has all his clothes on, the second that his lip is swollen, and the third that that, yes, he definitely came harder than he ever has in his damn life through three layers of wound cloth and two layers of leather

Shin pushes up first, making it easy for Drifter to roll off of him. He collapses like his bones have melted, Shin pressing firmly against his side. Steady washes of warmth curl off of him, and Drifter can't even try to stop the quiet infinity within him from sinking cool fingers into it.

Drifter opens his mouth to talk. Fails. Clears some of the remnants of violet-tinged gravity from his throat. "That, was, uh—" His voice sounds like it's been ground into rubble.

Shin just curls an arm around the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss.

He kisses him slow, and Drifter's too fucked out to do anything but follow along. Shin licks against him steady, pressing into his mouth and tasting like shards of super-nova. Drifter chases easy, while the edges of void soothe through his body and Shin's light dims into something hazy and sated.

Between kisses he thinks he hears Shin say "thank you", but by the time that lands, and Drifter blinks heavy eyes open, Shin's already asleep. Drifter stares down at him. There was that feeling again, that space where the panic ought to be. But there was something there instead, something that was never going to stop being hungry, but, for now, here, was full on sunlight.

He let himself fall back, not thinking about it too much as an arm slipped under Shin's waist and rolled him in close. Fuck it. Maybe some things could be easy.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this definitely check it [ Gileonnen's "Handful of Doubt" ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22582879) which was a huge inspiration re: massages and light play.
> 
> Comments and kudos always appreciated, thanks so much for reading! I'll just be over here being a total sucker for light play.
> 
> Find me on twitter @fortinbrasftw


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